Just a friendly reminder - Winding Road

So that you don't miss it. The August issue of Winding Road Magazine is out.

Missouri Roads Report

TRIP, a national transportation research group, weighs in on Missouri's roads in this report.

Wipers and Lights

Did you realize that in Missouri if conditions require that you use your windshield wipers that you must also use your lights?

"When lighted lamps are required" means at any time from a half-hour after sunset to a half-hour before sunrise and at any other time when there is not sufficient light to render clearly discernible persons and vehicles on the highway at a distance of five hundred feet ahead. Lighted lamps shall also be required any time the weather conditions require usage of the motor vehicle's windshield wipers to operate the vehicle in a careful and prudent manner as defined in section 304.012, RSMo. The provisions of this section shall be interpreted to require lighted lamps during periods of fog even if usage of the windshield wipers is not necessary to operate the vehicle in a careful and prudent manner.

Chapter 307 Vehicle Equipment Regulations Section 307.020

What about your past?

I am going through some draft posts that I have had sitting out there for sometime and noticed this one. It was from February 25, 2005. Not sure what else I had to say and why I didn't post, but here it is. I did notice that haven't added any more copies of my blogs since 2005. Glancing, some of the others have been updated though.

---------------------------------

Is your past being captured?

A bit of an intriguing question you might think. I was kind of kidding about this in a previous post in response to a post by Rob, but yet if you think about it there may be numerous copies of your information out there in the world. I blog about something and maybe you reference it or make a copy of it and comment on it, a search engine may have a cached copy, or maybe someone has a copy via a feed reader. Well there is one other one that you may not of thought about even if you knew it was out there. What is it you might ask. It is the Wayback Machine. As I was going through performing some house cleaning on my blog I ran into a post I made about the wayback machine. It had been some time since I had visited it and went to the site to take a look. Just for the fun of it I put in my blog address and what do you know, they actually archived my blog of all things that could be archived. I thought maybe they had just set it up to capture blogs on blogger.com, but that wasn't it, as my photoblog does not show up. I went ahead and threw in some other bloggers and several of them show up as well. Is Wayback watching you? Head on over to the Wayback Machine and find out.

Here are just a few out there:

Bonj

Andrew Pollack

Ben Langhinrichs

Ben Poole has excluded himself by limiting them via his robots.txt file. (I don't recall if I saw that via a post he mad or not.)

Bruce Elgort

David Fletcher

Duffbert

Ed

Libby

Phil

Scobie

40 Nikon D40s IN 40 DAYS

Today is the last day to enter to win a Nikon D40 in Nikon's Picturetown Promotion.

Timing: The Sweepstakes begins on May 16, 2007 at 12:00 a.m. Eastern Time ("ET") and ends on June 24, 2007 at 11:59 p.m. ET (the "Promotion Period"). The Sweepstakes consists of forty (40) daily entry periods, each beginning at 12:00 a.m. ET and ending at 11:59 p.m. ET every day of the Promotion Period. Sponsor’s computer is the official time-keeping device for the Sweepstakes.

I have entered everyday since I noticed the sweepstakes. I haven't won yet. I am kind of glad it is over, as I was getting tired of going through all of the photos to find the little icon, or should I say little Nikon everyday.

Oh well, good luck to everyone that entered.

YouTube Mobile

Have you tried Mobile YouTube on your cell phone yet?

It does not appear to work on my phone, which doesn't really bother me as I am not a big YouTube watcher.

FireEagle

I saw something stating that fireeagle is a new service from Yahoo, but it is in alpha and closed to the general populous. Yet it didn't say what the service actually is.



http://fireeagle.research.yahoo.com/

If you know what the service is, feel free to share.

Tundra Prove It

I was coming out of work at lunch yesterday and I saw two Toyota Tundra pickups pass in front of me. Both very nice looking trucks. Normally it might be something that one would not think much about, but on the front were decals on both of them that said, "Tundra Prove It". Both of them also had California license plates. They turned in front of me and headed up High St.

Well I plugged in Tundra Prove It and came up with a website: http://www.tundraproveit.com/




I checked their schedule and it shows them scheduled to be north of here in Columbia, MO at Bass Pro Shop from 10am-6pm 6/21 thru 6/24. As they were in the Capital City I am not sure why they did not schedule something here too.

Beers I like

A few beers I like:

Negra Medelo
Corona
Guinness Draught
Bully Porter
Schlafly Oatmeal Stout
Sam Adams Winterfest

The usual Budweiser Beers:
Bud Light
Bud Ice
Bud Select
Bud Dry

A decent relatively cheap beer:
IceHouse

And many others.

I definitely don't need another one, but here is an e-mail address that looks kind of cool:

Nice Cars

Aston Martin V8 Vantage N24



Jaguar CFX

Hammer and Coop

Starsky and Hutch meets KnightRider and Baywatch.

I am not even sure if Cheesy is the right word for it.

A Brithish Kit the car and a Ben Stiller wannabee.

Another music download site.

Photo Story 3

Have you ever tried Photo Story 3?

Car

It appears that all issues have been fixed with the car. The latest being a sway bar end link (?) and a new fascia for the stereo.

Interesting Hosted Solution

OpenTeams looks to be intersting. $16 a month or less, dependent on use.

Open Source Resource

Not sure how good it is, but if you are looking for info about Open Source Projects, you might check out Ohloh.

Ohloh is a resource for open source intelligence on thousands of open source projects. Ohloh collects software metrics from a variety of sources including the project's source code and the software development infrastructure used by the project's development team.

Pickin up the car

Okay, I went to pick the car up yesterday. I hopped in pulled out of the lot again and went right back in. Here is what the fascia looked like around the stereo. Needless to say not the same color as the old one, but the bigger problem it is was simply a spray painted fascia. It didn't have the screwdriver marks of mine, but as you look at the bottom picture, you might realize that the paint job had bubbles in it as well as they didn't even spray it well enough to cover the whole thing. The service dispatcher said taht his manager told him that he wanted him to try to fix it without ordering the new part. Hello, you told me you were ordering a new part and then to pull this crap. Oh well, now they are ordering a new one.

So I jump back in the car and head off and hear my suspension squeak. Okay, turn around again, pull back in, and go back in telling the service dispatcher he needs to grab a tech and come with me or send a service advisor and a tech for a ride in the car. The service advisor and the technician climb in and before we get off of the Ford lot, they hear the noise I am talking about. Hello, that is why I have been asking are you sure, each time I have called, and they reassure me there is no squeak since putting on the new spring. I went ahead and took them up the hill and around a few blocks for good measure, as they keep guessing, strut, sway bar, etc.. Upon getting back, the tech says turn the wheel back and forth, and I tell him it doesn't make the noise then, which it doesn't as I turn the wheel back and forth, so he says it probably isn't the struts then.

Okay, the service dispatcher apologizes, states that he will order the fascia and they will come to me, pick the car up from me and return it to me on Friday. They will put the brand new fasica in, and fix the suspension. I am not going to hold my breath, but we'll see what happens.

.Gov Blogs

A Few Gov Blogs actually hosted on .gov domain.

Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director's Blog

Library of Congress Blog

Pandemic Flu Leadership Blog

Kind of interesting - A NASA Launch Blog
It appears that they just do it during the launch themselves.
NASA's Launch Blog was activated: June 8, 2007 at 1:30 p.m. EDT
NASA's Launch Blog was deactivated: June 8, 2007 at 7:49 p.m. EDT

The Gavel

Rep. Jack Kingston - 1st District of Georgia

Missouri Attorney General's Consumer Blog

Missouri Lottery has a blog, although not hosted on .gov domain address it is an actual state site.

A bit surprised that each Representative and Senator doesn't have a blog setup to share thoughts and insights with constituents, although then it would be in black and white and some would not like that.

Another Code Search

Per the Google Labs list it says that it is new, so I guess they are joining the fray of others that do code searches.

Google Code Search

On the advanced search you can narrow down to a specific language and other options.

Google 411 Information

Here is the 411 from Google's site.

Welcome to Google Voice Local Search
Google Voice Local Search is Google’s experimental service to make local-business search accessible over the phone.

To try this service, just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone.

Using this service, you can:

search for a local business by name or category.
You can say "Giovanni's Pizzeria" or just "pizza".


get connected to the business, free of charge.


get the details by SMS if you’re using a mobile phone.
Just say "text message".



And it's free. Google doesn’t charge you a thing for the call or for connecting you to the business. Regular phone charges may apply, based on your telephone service provider.

Note: Google Voice Local Search is still in its experimental stage. It may not be available at all times and may not work for all users. We’re fine-tuning the service to get better at recognizing your requests. It’s currently only available in English, in the US, for US business listings.

Google Gears

As I have mentioned a few features of items I may as well add another. Did you know that you could utilize Google Reader Offline now with Google Gears?

Snoop

I received the following regarding a new feature to Reinvigorate.

We'd like to invite you to beta test our latest tracking feature, Snoop. Snoop is a Desktop application that streams website and blog events to you live, in real-time. Snoop can let you know the instant someone makes a comment on your blog or a purchase/donation from your site. Visit http://www.reinvigorate.net/ for additional details and client downloads (available for Mac and PC).

Show off your stats with friend accounts. With this new feature, you can give your friends/clients access to the reports and event stream (Snoop) of the sites you manage.

We hope you enjoy using these new features!

sm
http://www.reinvigorate.net/

Safari Browser for Windows

Did you see that Apple now has a Public Beta version of their Safari browser available for Windows?



They point out the following features on the site:

Blazing Performance
Safari is the fastest web browser on any platform.

Elegant User Interface
Safari’s clean look lets you focus on the web — not your browser.

Easy Bookmarks
Organize your bookmarks just like you organize music in iTunes.

Pop-up Blocking
Say goodbye to annoying pop-up ads and pop-under windows.

Inline Find
Search any text on any website with the integrated Find banner.

Tabbed Browsing
Open and switch between multiple web pages in a single window.

SnapBack
Instantly snap back to search results or the top level of a website.

Forms AutoFill
Let Safari complete online forms for you, automatically and securely.

Built-in RSS
RSS tells you when new content is added to your favorite sites.

Resizable Text Fields
Resize text fields on any website: Just grab the corner and drag.

Private Browsing
Keep your online activities private with a single click.

Security
Apple engineers designed Safari to be secure from day one.

Ford POS (Piece of ....) I mean Focus

Once again I have taken my Ford Focus into the shop. Yes, still the local Ford dealership. And yes once again. For the same issues I have repeatedly had.

• The button on the dash for popping the hatch didn't work.

• The CD changer was having problems.

• The suspension was making noises. Of course, having put new tires on it the week before and finding a piece of the coil spring hanging in down from the spring itself probably did nothing to help this issue.

• There was an additional issue this time. Leaking antifreeze.

I took the car in last Wednesday. Ford diagnosed the car.

As I have an extended warranty which was purchased form the Ford dealer when the car was purchased, they contacted the extended warranty company, who wanted to send an adjuster out to have a look at it. They had to have the car for the adjuster to see. They said the adjuster usually shows up within 48 hours, so I left the car. The warranty company said they would cover everything (excluding the deductable).

It ended up being Monday before Ford ordered the parts.

Ford said they would replace the switch for popping the hatch.

They would swap out the stereo, which has been done once before, and another time they sent it off to be worked on.

They were ordering a spring to replace the broken one.

And they said the antifreeze was leaking from the thermostat housing. While they had it apart they asked if I wanted them to go ahead and put in a new thermostat, not covered. As it was $16, I said to go ahead, as I didn't want to be overheating in a week and have them blaming it on the old thermostat.

They said they would have the car done yesterday, but late yesterday they said they were not done that it would be today. They called over the lunch hour today to say they had it ready.

I ended up taking off of work early so my wife would not have to make a trip back to get me from work, as she gets out of work earlier than I do and we pass Ford on the way home. She dropped me off and headed on home. They brought the car around and I jumped in and pointed towards home. I got a block away and realized the CD player did not have all of the CDs in it, and while doing so, noticed on both sides of the stereo there were big marks on both sides of the facia. Not sure who took it out, but they messed it up big time. Even had some marks on the dash. I made a U-turn and headed back. I pulled into the service entrance and got out of the car. I had not tried popping the hatch and did so when getting out. Of course, it did not work. I waited for a few minutes before a service advisor asked if they could help me. I took them over to the car and showed them that the hatch would not pop and that the dash was messed up.

This individual went back and got the service dispatcher, who took a look. He could see the dash was messed up around the stereo and after trying to pop the hatch asked for the key and turned it on then tried to pop it. Still nothing. He had a technician come out. He watched the service dispatcher try to pop it while he tried pulling up on the hatch and listening for it to pop. He said that he tried it 100 times and it had worked everytime. Hmmm. Anyway, the service dispatcher said that the technician said some of the marks were already there around the stereo. If there were any from before they were not noticable. Hmm, seems to kind of imply that I am lying about it or something, and even if there would have been some before, it would still mean that their staff did it during a previous incident, so what a great response. What they had done was extremely evident. Basically leaving a gap in spots of the fascia on both sides of the stereo. They have taken the stereo out twice before without incident.

Anyway, the service dispatcher said that they would order a new fascia to take care of that issue and I would have to bring it back when the part came in for it, then sent the car back with the technician for them to work on the hatch release. After waiting around a while he came and said that they would go ahead and send me home with the car rather than have to continue to wait and then have me drop it back off first thing in the morning. I told them that didn't save me any effort, I would just leave it and have my wife come get me tonight. He said they would continue to work on the latch until close and have it in there first thing in the morning. He said they would get the fascia in tomorrow as well. We'll see what they end up doing this time. Tomorrow will be a week since taking it in. I have not looked under the hood, or gotten to drive it enough to see if the suspension noise is gone. I guess I'll see if they had any luck with those items, if I actually get the car back at some point.

On another note the new gas mileage numbers are still better than what I have ever gotten out of my focus.

iPhone

Get Ready, iPhone is coming.



The new iPhone does look pretty cool. I would have to say it kind of upstages the Upstage at least on hype. I have not looked at their features.



Even though the other two might be cool, my Samsung a640 works fine for me.

Paris Hilton, Paris Hilton, Paris Hilton

Everyone else is talking Paris Hilton, so I figured I had better join in.




Paris Hilton
18 Avenue de Suffren, Paris, France 75015
Tel: 33-1-44385600 Fax: 33-1-44385610



Paris Hilton
51-57, rue de Courcelles, Paris, France 75008
Tel: 33-1-58 36 6700 Fax: 33-1-58 36 6777



Paris Hilton
2 place de la Defense CNIT - BP 210, Paris, France 92053
Tel: 33-01-46921010 Fax: 33-01-46921050



Paris Hilton
Orly Sud 267, Orly Aerogare Cedex, Paris, France 94544
Tel: 33-1-45124512 Fax: 33-1-45124500

Blogger

Blogger now has an autosave feature.

Ford getting smaller

Well, Ford got rid of Aston Martin and now they are looking to get rid of Jaguar and Land Rover. I think the brands did well under Ford. Possibly all the more reason to sell them. Oh well, good luck Jaguar and Land Rover. The product line at both has been looking better in recent years. I guess it is all about money and not a passion for cars.

LCC Rocket

One of those cool little cars. Not that I could even afford one at such a point, but it would be nice to see something like this more affordable like $10-12,000, not $106,000.

You can see a video on Winding Road.

Some would probably say to just go buy a motorcycle, which would give one the speed thrill, but some feel more comfortable on 4 wheels.

Portable Apps

Someone at work pointed this one out to me. Pretty cool! PortableApps is a lot like U3 applications. You can get the Portable Apps Suite for free.

Apps currently included in standard edition:

ClamWin Portable (antivirus)
Mozilla Firefox - Portable Edition (web browser)
Gaim Portable (instant messaging)
OpenOffice.org Portable (office suite)
Sudoku Portable (puzzle game)
Mozilla Sunbird - Portable Edition (calendar/task manager)
Mozilla Thunderbird - Portable Edition (email client)

I missed seeing this one before - MS Shared View.

From the site:

Hold more effective meetings and conference calls
Connect with up to 15 people in different locations and get your point across by showing them what's on your screen.

Work together in real time
Share, review, and update documents with multiple people in real time.

Use when and where you want
SharedView is easy to use, from anywhere, at a moment's notice.

No built in chat or audio with the product at this point. You can find out more in the FAQs. It does allow one to post handouts for a session, which are cleaned up when the session is over.